


brighter sun and sweetest sorrow

by golondrinas



Series: classic love stories [2]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Brian is Benvolio, Crystal is Roger's nurse, Forbidden Romance, Freddie is Mercutio, Idiots in Love, John is Romeo, M/M, Mutual Pining, Roger is Juliet, Veronica is Rosaline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-28 14:37:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19396177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/golondrinas/pseuds/golondrinas
Summary: in fair verona beach, forbidden love blossoms on a balcony.* * *gratuitous joger romeo + juliet!au





	brighter sun and sweetest sorrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [talkingismylife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingismylife/gifts).



> big big big thanks to @talkingismylife for encouraging me enough to post this little 10 page monster.
> 
> i've always found original shakespearean dialogue difficult to read in the written format, so i'm using a slight modification of the no fear shakespeare version. i'm also using the setting and plot of the 1996 romeo + juliet (the one with leonardo dicaprio).
> 
> everyone in this story is an adult. i know it changes the dynamic and underlying tragedy of the story, but this isn't the 1500s. its tooth-rotting, absolutely disgusting sappiness still remains, though.

John’s neck aches from glancing back so much. Freddie’s hand is clasped tightly around his, towing him towards the car through the mass of dispersing Capulets and company. The entrance to the mansion is throbbing with color and sound in a cacophony of voices, glittering lights, and revving engines. Urgency radiates off Freddie: they need to go, _now_ , or else risk discovery and inevitable violence. But while Freddie drags him forward, John is pulled backwards, compelled by an invisible force to look back again: just the once, or twice, or maybe just a quick little turn.

His head is still reeling from realizing who Roger’s family is, fear and dread creeping around the edges of his heart. But he’s irrevocably, unfailingly, eternally attracted all the same. The celebration fades to a dull roar as he catches flashes of shadow on the window-panes: the graceful outline of a heavenly body against the blue glass. Roger disappears farther inside the mansion again, his silhouette obscured by the ornamental trees, and John is left to stare intently, waiting anxiously for a glimpse of an angel wing.

He doesn’t notice Freddie vanish from his side until his friend reappears, their firearms gripped in one fist and a handful of John’s knight costume in the other. He’s shepherded like a a child towards the convertible, never breaking his gaze upwards. His patience is rewarded with the sight of Roger emerging onto an open balcony, eyes scanning the crowd until he finds John seated in the back of Freddie’s car. John’s breath catches again, oblivious to the raucous singing and movement of the other passengers. The two lock gazes, immersed in each other, but John is too far away to tell the other man’s expression or the words he speaks. John’s brow furrows in confusion, his body and attention facing backwards even as the car begins to move. The fireworks overhead match the thundering of his blood, and John realizes then what he’d sensed the moment he and Roger separated: he cannot leave.

He waits until the motorcade comes to a stop before clearing the side door of the car and running back towards the mansion. _I have to go back to where my heart is_ , John thinks.

Brian and Freddie are moments behind him, calling his name desperately. He pays no mind as he hurtles around the corner, back towards the Capulet residence, hellbent on returning to his beloved. Freddie’s heels clatter on the cobblestones before he stops, John now out of view as he scales the mansion’s outer walls.

“I’ll conjure him as if I were summoning a spirit.” Freddie knows they’re blocking traffic and seriously risking a row, but he’s hesitant to leave John behind.

“John, darling! Madman! Passion! Lover! Show yourself in the form of a sigh. Speak one rhyme, and I’ll be satisfied. Just cry out, ‘Ah me!’ Just say ‘love’ and ‘dove.’ Say just one lovely word to my good friend Venus. Just say the nickname of her blind son Cupid, the one who shot arrows so well in the old story.”

John still hasn’t reappeared, lost to his foray into the shrubbery that covers the walls, and Freddie’s outfit does not deserve to be subjected to spontaneous climbing adventures.

“John doesn’t hear me. He doesn’t stir. He doesn’t move. The silly ape is dead, but I must make him appear.” Although Freddie’s tone is light and joking, they’re running out of time, and Capulet security certainly isn’t amused. Freddie plays his last card.

“I summon you by Veronica’s bright eyes, by her high forehead and her red lips, by her fine feet, by her straight legs, by her trembling thighs, and by the regions right next to her thighs! In the name of all of these things, I command you to appear before us in your true form.”

Still no response. Freddie turns in bafflement to Brian beside him and the others still waiting in the convertible, the cars behind them honking excessively.

Brian flushes. “If he hears you, you’ll make him angry.”

Freddie rolls his eyes. He may look divine, but he lacks a saint’s patience to deal with Brian as well as John.

“What I’m saying can’t anger him. He would be angry if I summoned a strange spirit for her to have sex with! The things I’m saying are fair and honest. All I’m doing is saying the name of the woman he loves to lure him out of the darkness.”

“Come on. He’s hidden behind these trees to keep the night company. His love is blind, so it belongs in the dark.” Brian glances back anxiously as the honking grows louder, mixed with shouts of protest.

“If love is blind, it can’t hit the target, darling.”

“Good night, John,” Freddie calls over his shoulder, walking back towards the car with Brian. “I’ll go to my little trundle bed. This open field is too cold a place for me to sleep.”

They climb back into the convertible, and with a graceful stretch of Freddie’s arm to the driver and a very dignified jeer to the guards, they speed out the gate and into the night.

* * *

John is nearly to the top of the wall when he hears his friends leave. As dedicated as he is to his endeavor, he hadn’t missed any of their taunting. Irritation washes over him, and at Freddie especially.

 _It’s easy for someone to joke about scars if they’ve never been cut_ , he grumbles. Emotion propels him quicker up the wall until his hands meet the flat stone of the top, hoisting himself over and into the quiet of the swimming poolside.

As he sidles around the perimeter, the lights suddenly flood to life, revealing a classical courtyard framed by marble statues and leafy potted plants, a blue pool carved into the center. John startles, knocking over a chair as he frantically lunges for cover. After disturbing at least three other pieces of furniture, with a loud crash to boot, he scrambles out of sight and flattens himself up against a trellis of ivy that sprawls up onto the balcony on the second floor of the mansion. John freezes until the barking of guard dogs subsides, breathing heavily and offering prayers to every deity he can think of.

Once the roaring of blood in his ears calms, he cranes his head up to see the rooms above him. A light turns on in a window directly overhead, the curtains billowing from movement inside. His heart hammers in his chest as he turns to scale the trellis, clinging on to the vines for support. The words are gushing out of him before he even knows it.

“What’s that light in the window over there? It is the east, and Roger is the sun. Rise up, beautiful sun, and kill the jealous moon. The moon is already sick and pale with grief because you, Roger, her servant, are more beautiful than she.”

He pauses near the top of the balcony and leans out towards the pool for a better look, anxiously waiting for Roger to appear. The courtyard is silent save for his breathing and the steady hum of the crickets.

The adrenaline pumping through him electrifies every thought and feeling. The soft yellow light of the courtyard is blurring the peripherals of his vision; the sight above him contrasts in sharp definition. His eyes search the window impatiently, Roger’s beauty seared into the backs of his eyelids with colors sweet enough to taste.

“Two of the brightest stars in the whole sky had to go away on business, and they’re asking his eyes to twinkle in their places until they return. The brightness of his cheeks would outshine the stars the way the sun outshines a lamp. If his eyes were in the night sky, they would shine so brightly through space that birds would start singing, thinking his light was the light of day.”

The window swings inward, and the curtains are drawn back. John perks up, his lips parted in delighted surprise—only to see a middle-aged man in a bathrobe with an annoyed look on his face. John huffs in disgust and disappointment, swinging around to press flat against the trellis as the man steps out onto the balcony, likely looking for the source of the noise from earlier.

Just as John moves to drop to the ground, an elevator bell chimes to his left. He desperately repositions himself higher up the ivy and peeks around the corner of the stone hallway, twisting back when he sees Roger, head bowed, walking towards the pool.

“Oh,” he gasps out. “There is my Roger, my love. Oh, I wish he knew how much I love him.” John stills against the trellis and waits for Roger to walk out of the hallway and into the open courtyard, but the other man stops at a statue to John’s immediate left, resting a hand on its back.

“Oh, my,” Roger sighs, and John’s heart is thumping so loudly in his chest he is surprisedhis beloved cannot hear it. He’s breathless with nerves and excitement, lost entirely to the magnetism of Roger.

“He speaks. Oh, speak again, bright angel. You shine above me, like a winged messenger from heaven who makes mortal men fall on their backs to look up at the sky, watching the angel walking on the clouds and sailing on the air.”

“John,” Roger’s sweet, sweet voice interrupts his musings. He gasps, taut as a bow string, concentrating so deeply that he forgets to breathe.

“Oh, John, John, why do you have to be John? Forget about your father and change your name.” Roger steps out fully into John’s vision, walking aimlessly around the pool as he speaks, staring and gesturing at the floor. He’s lost the wings, but still wears his open white vest and pants, tousled hair brushing his shoulders and silver cross looped around his neck. He’s even more breathtaking than John’s memory of him. Yet John can hear the anguish in his voice, and is torn between his desires to sweep the other into a passionate kiss or a comforting hug.

“Or else, if you won’t change your name, just swear you love me and I’ll stop being a Capulet.”

 _Should I listen for more, or should I speak now?_ John thinks, but before he can make a decision, Roger continues.

“It’s only your name that’s my enemy. You’d still be yourself even if you stopped being a Montague. What’s a Montague anyway?”

Roger moves farther to John’s right to kneel by the pool and address the water. John takes the opportunity to quietly detach himself from the wall and sneak up behind an oblivious Roger.

“It isn’t a hand, a foot, an arm, a face, or any other part of a man. Oh, be some other name! What does a name mean? The thing we call a rose would smell just as sweet if we called it by any other name. John would be just as perfect even if he wasn’t called John. John, lose your name. Trade in your name—which really has nothing to do with you—and take all of me in exchange.”

“I trust your words,” John whispers right into Roger’s ear, and his romantic surprise ends with a violent splash as Roger yells and falls into the pool, pulling John with him.

He twists around in the water to face Roger, and as soon as they break the surface, gasping for air, Roger cuts him off before he can even begin to explain.

“Aren’t you John? And a Montague?”

John moves a lock of Roger’s hair from his face in an attempt to soothe him. “I am neither of those things if you dislike them.”

"Tell me, how did you get in here?” Roger demands, his blue eyes sharp and bright. “And why did you come? The mansion walls are high, and it’s hard to climb over them. If any of my relatives find you here they’ll kill you because of who you are.”

“I flew over these walls with the light wings of love,” John laughs. “Stone walls can’t keep love out. Whatever a man in love can possibly do, his love will make him try to do it.” He surges up out of the water, raising his voice in challenge, “therefore your relatives are no obstacle.”

Roger immediately pushes him back down into the water and out of view, ushering him into the alcove underneath the balcony and down beneath the water’s surface.

The gate opens, and a displeased guard steps out to investigate. But upon seeing only a very wet, charming, and solitary Roger, he smiles and turns back inside. John breaks out of the water just in time, desperate for air.

Roger turns back to him, expression even more serious than before. “If they see you, they’ll murder you.”

“The darkness will hide me from them. And if you don’t love me, let them find me here. I’d rather they killed me than have to live without your love,” John says, pushing them farther back into the alcove and Roger onto the ledge of the pool.

He holds Roger’s gaze for a moment before inching his face closer and closer until their foreheads touch. He waits a moment, drunk on the closeness of Roger, before stretching up to press their lips together. The kiss moves and deepens, Roger threading his fingers between the hair at the nape of John's neck and cradling his head. John wishes it could last forever, because too soon, Roger is pulling away, more questions on his lips.

“Who told you how to get here below my bedroom?”

John smiles dopily, flying high on Roger’s touch. “Love showed me the way—the same thing that made me look for you in the first place. Love told me what to do, and I let love borrow my eyes. I’m not a sailor, but if you were across the farthest sea, I would risk everything to gain you.”

Roger looks down and to the side, moving away from John. “You can’t see my face because it’s dark out. Otherwise, you’d see me blushing about the things you’ve heard me say tonight.” John follows him all the way to the other end of the pool, where another set of steps lead up and out onto the courtyard floor.

Roger continues, “I would be happy to keep up good manners and deny the things I said. But forget about good manners.” He looks up, and the intensity in his expression cuts through some of the haze of John’s mind.

“Do you love me?”

John surges forward, a kiss as his reply, but Roger holds him back.

“I know you’ll say ‘yes', and I’ll believe you. But if you swear you love me, you might turn out to be lying. They say Jove laughs when lovers lie to each other. Oh John, if you really love me, say it truly. Or if you think it’s too easy and quick to win my heart, I’ll frown and play hard-to-get, as long as that will make you try to win me, but otherwise I wouldn’t act that way for anything.”

Roger looks up at him from underneath his lashes, water droplets pooling along the curves of his cheeks. “In truth, handsome Montague, I like you too much, so you may think my behavior is loose. But trust me, gentleman, I’ll prove myself more faithful than those who act coy and play hard-to-get. Do not assume that because you made me love you so easily my love isn’t serious.”

John frowns. “My love, I swear by the sacred moon above, the moon that paints the tops of fruit trees with silver—”

“Don’t swear by the moon,” Roger shakes his head and looks away. “The moon is always changing. Every month its position in the sky shifts. I don’t want you to turn out to be that inconsistent too.”

“What should I swear by, then?” John asks with a quirk of his lips.

“Don’t swear at all,” Roger raises his eyebrows suggestively. “But if you have to swear, swear by your wonderful self, which is the god I worship like an idol, and then I’ll believe you.”

“If my heart’s dear love—” is all John manages before he can no longer resist the temptation to steal another kiss. He’s wrapped in pure, all-consuming bliss until his lips break away only to meet the back of Roger’s head.

“Well, don’t swear. Although you bring me joy, I can’t take joy in this exchange of promises tonight.” John pulls Roger closer to face him, lines appearing between his brows in confusion.

“It’s too crazy,” Roger explains, with a little gesture of his hands. “We haven’t done enough thinking. It’s too sudden. It’s too much like lightning, which flashes and then disappears before you can say its name.”

His palms come up to gently frame John’s face. “My sweet, good night,” he punctuates with a chaste kiss. John is determined to prolong their time together as much as possible, however, and begins peppering kisses on Roger’s cheeks and down his neck to his chest.

“Our love, which right now is like a flower bud in the summer air, may turn out to be a beautiful flower by the next time we meet,” Roger manages in between gasps from John’s ministrations. "I hope you enjoy the same sweet peace and rest I feel in my heart. Good night.”

He pulls himself onto the step and climbs out of the pool, turning back towards the mansion.

“Oh, are you going to leave me so unsatisfied?” John is getting tired of the cat-and-mouse game.

At this, Roger pauses and glares over his shoulder. “What satisfaction could you possibly have tonight?”

“I would be satisfied if we made each other true promises of love.” He pours all of the intensity and earnestness of his feelings into the words, silently pleading with Roger to believe him.

Roger’s face lights up with the most beautiful smile John has ever seen. “I pledged my love to you before you asked me to!” He steps forward to kiss John again, sending them falling backwards and plunging into the water, without ever breaking the kiss.

Distantly, John hears a voice call his beloved’s name, and as they break the surface, aman is back at the window again, leaning over the balcony. They scramble out of the pool and back into the hallway to hide John from view.

“Just a minute, good Nurse,” Roger calls out into the open courtyard.

Roger turns back to look John in the eyes, his words swift with urgency. “Three words, dear John, and then it’s good night for real.” He breaks their eye contact to look back up at the mansion.

“If your intentions as a lover are truly honorable and you want to marry me, send me word tomorrow. I’ll send a messenger to you, and you can pass on a message telling me where and when we’ll be married. I’ll lay all my fortunes at your feet and follow you, my lord, all over the world.” Just as he leans in for another kiss, the silence is broken by a very impatient voice.

“Roger!”

“I’ll be right there!”

He's rushing to get his words out. _“_ But if you don’t have honorable intentions, I beg you—”

“ _Roger!_ ”

“Alright, I’m coming!” Roger’s temper begins to simmer, and John cannot help but smile. Roger breaks away from him to back away towards the staircase to the mansion. “I beg you to stop trying for me and leave me to my sadness.”

He pivots on the first stair to promise, “Tomorrow I’ll send the messenger.”

John scrambles to memorize every line of his beloved's face.

“My soul depends on it.”

Roger smiles as he turns to ascend the stairs, taking John’s breath with him. Once he reaches the second floor, he kneels on the floor of the balcony and pokes his head through the balustrade. John scrambles up the trellis to reach his level, unable to let Roger go.

“A thousand times good night.”

Their kiss is too soon interrupted by a frustrated nurse, and Roger straightens up while John drops to the ground. He makes his way back towards his bedroom, but not without several pauses to glance back at John, watching from below. Roger whispers a final parting, and disappears around the corner.

John smiles and shakes his head, returning towards the courtyard’s perimeter. “Leaving you is a thousand times worse than being near you. A lover goes toward his beloved as enthusiastically as a schoolboy leaving his books.”

“But when he leaves his love,” John muses, “he feels as miserable as the schoolboy on his way to school.” Just as he turns towards the wall to leave, Roger breaks out onto the balcony.

“John! What time tomorrow should I send a messenger to you?”

“By nine o’clock,” He whisper-yells back.

“I won’t fail. From now until then seems like twenty years.” He kneels down onto the balcony, arm outstretched in the air, and John crosses the courtyard to once again entangle himself in the trellis, gazing up adoringly. Roger drops his silver cross necklace from his hand, and too soon, is standing up and walking back inside. John’s fingers wrap around it like a vow.

He reaches the walls of the courtyard, one leg over the rail, before Roger speaks one final time.

“Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow that I’ll say good night until tonight becomes tomorrow.”

Roger flashes that smile again, the one that grips John by the heart and lifts him five feet in the air. John is helpless but to return it, stars in his eyes and worship in his hands. He climbs over the rail, down to the ground, and is running for the priest the second his feet touch the road.

**Author's Note:**

> *clenches fist* roger in the angel costume with his cute little wings okay??? ugh
> 
> come scream with me into the void on tumblr @borhap


End file.
